Blogs
Teacher must be at the centre of the fundamental reforms in the education system
The rich heritage of ancient and eternal Indian knowledge and thought has been a guiding light for education today. The pursuit of knowledge (Jnan), wisdom (Pragyaa), and truth (Satya) was always considered in Indian thought and philosophy as the highest human goal. The aim of education in...
The potential of AI to transform education
The transformative power of Artificial Intelligence (AI) can be seen in every industry, including the education sector. AI is transforming the way teachers teach and students learn. Quality education is the right of every child but because of educational inequality, significant challenges...
Creating a safe environment for English through frugal innovations
English education is not just a skill but a way of life. English is one of the most spoken languages in the world making it a prerequisite in all forms of jobs to keep up with the rapid changes in the world. But for us, English is a foreign language and children often find it difficult to...
A lot can happen within a year
Education is the passport to a brighter future. It is the most powerful weapon to change the world and this weapon lies in the hands of our young population. In the 19 years since education became our fundamental right, India has achieved a near-universal enrolment...
Against All Odds – without a smartphone
I was born and brought up in the outskirts of the city of Hisar in a small village called Satrod Kalan. Growing up, we neither had the technology that is available for children today, nor we had teachers who would put extra effort to teach and help us understand various concepts. I was the most...
Shivani ki Kahani
With the change in policy and a lot of awareness, the trend has changed for children studying in rural areas. Now I see girls coming to school, but when I joined as an assistant teacher, it was a task to bring children to school, especially girls. In Haryana and other states such as Uttar...
Their Smiles Are Worth All My Efforts
A few years ago, I had a student in 2nd grade- let’s call her Richa- who suddenly started behaving very violently. She would get in fights during playtime, hit her friends without provocation, and even tear the pages of her textbooks in the middle of the class. All in all, a very troubling...
My teacher taught me to believe – that's what I teach my students now
Teaching is more than a profession – it is a responsibility. It is not only about ensuring that the children trust to you fulfill all their academic requirements – it is about building an emotional...
I learned how to beat the odds from my 11-year-old student
In 2010, I joined a school in Bhurarani. Garima was a class 5 student. A giggly little girl, she would often catch my attention for her chirpiness. In the first week of my joining, she came to me and told me that she likes it when I speak in English and she would want to learn all the words I...
How a 12-year-old taught me to be a perfect host
Asif, 12, is a quiet and introvert kid in my class and I always liked him for his kindness towards other children. Last year I and my colleague went to his village for some departmental work. He saw us and came running towards us. He insisted that we should meet his mother, pointing to a nearby...
Tulsi ki Kyari
It has been almost three months since lockdown. Today morning, when I was dusting my desk, I found this crumbled, hand-made potli of paper, which had a few okra seeds inside. It reminded me of my visit to this school on the outskirts of Gurugram shortly before the lockdown began.
The...
In Jharkhand, we are on a mission: Education even in times of corona
Sampark Foundation, along with the Jharkhand government, is working hard to ensure that children continue their education even amid the corona crisis and that the learning curve does not bend in the state. As per a report by Feedback consulting, three out of four children in Jharkhand cannot...
I will come out a stronger and wiser person post corona crisis, thanks to our leadership
A few days before the ‘Lockdown’ became a headline on every news channel in India, I was en route to the Sampark head office, where I was to begin a five-week training with five of my colleagues from the field.
I was excited and was looking forward to some...
Learning is more than what we teach our children
My Son Yashas is 5 years old, and just the other day he solved more than half of a Class-2 workbook. I was amazed at his feat because he has not even started his formal education.
When Yashas was born, Meera (my wife) and I had unanimously decided that I would continue my job in...
Though disadvantaged, our little girls are on the march
On a beautiful winter morning, a few months back, a group of students from one of the best communications colleges in India came to visit our school. We were looking forward to their visit for many days, and finally here they were- a group of urban teenagers, most of whom had never set foot...
Do you have the answer?
Hardly, 20 kilometers away from my urban, upmarket residence, I was at a government primary school at Chithara, Dadri. As head, communication, with an organisation that works in the field of primary education, I was on a regular visit to see the implementation of the...
My students have helped me become a ‘good’ teacher
It was my first day on the job. I always wanted to be a teacher and here I was, appointed as one in a government school. I felt extremely happy to be in a position where I had an opportunity to transform the lives of rural children. What I didn’t know, was...
The importance of culturally relevant pedagogy
I come from Ladakh-- the land of sparkling blue lakes, prayer flags, double hump-back camels, monasteries and sub-zero temperatures. My family is one of the few left of the Balti community, who populate the small town of Tyakshi, a village on the banks of the Shyok river. Interestingly, before...
This is why I wish to be a teacher
When someone asks me why I am pursuing a course in Junior Basic Training (JBT), flashes of my childhood memories play in front of me. I can almost smell the wet mud, upon which we would sit and play. While some girls played ghar-ghar, me along with a few others would gather some pens and...
Our education in the power of positivity
I was born and brought up in Bhilai, a quaint little industrial town of Chhattisgarh, where people from different parts of the country live together, speak different languages. It was a peaceful and loving community.
At Sampark, my work required me to travel to every nook and...
Notes from a successful, educative collaboration
In 2013, Chhattisgarh was at the bottom of the National Achievement Survey for learning outcomes among children in schools. Six in 10 children in Chhattisgarh could not read simple text and solve grade-level problems in Math. It was apparent to us that the foundation skills of children needed...
Creating a bias-free learning environment
Although I never faced any discrimination myself, I have sometimes seen people around me discriminating against other individuals on the basis of caste or religion or other such societal classifications.
On a school visit in Gundardehi, a block in Chhattisgarh, I was talking...
How my job changed my perception of teachers
I have been working in the development sector for the last 15 years and got an opportunity to see Indian villages from close quarters. Since I joined Sampark three years back, my entire focus has been on education. I read a lot about various problems that afflict the education system in our...
Education is all about learning, not teaching
I grew up in Chhattisgarh, shuffling between state and CBSE boards to complete my primary and secondary education. After completing my class-5 studies, I joined the district Navoday Vidhyalaya (CBSE board school). All the classroom transactions here, were in English...
How I finally got over my fear of Math
Every time my teachers asked me to solve a Math problem on blackboard, I felt butterflies in my stomach. Though I was good in most subjects, the very mention of Math had me sweating. No wonder, I got a lot of bashing from my Math teacher for being ‘the most hopeless student’ in the...
Teaching a multi-lingual class
What do you do when children in your class speak different languages? In my class, I get children from Bihar, Bangladesh, Uttar Pradesh, Nepal and all of them speak their native languages.
It is so because in the school where I teach, most students are children of migrant labourers who...
Teaching helps me deal with my cancer
When I chose to become a teacher, it was mainly because of the comfortable work timings and stability that this job offered. But over the years it became my passion, such an integral part of my life.
I always did my work with sincerity—I would take the syllabus...
A bittersweet experience
Winter was unusually harsh last year. When I reached the primary school at Aarang block, in Raipur, Chhattisgarh, some of the children didn’t even have woollens to protect them from the cold. All they had were their books and bag and they were holding them...
Ain't no mountain high enough
It is said that mothers love is precious, but it was my misfortune that I lost my mother when I was hardly 6. My father, a matriculate pass, knew the importance of education and wanted both me and my brother to study hard. I clearly remember what he told me on my first day at school. He said:...
Learning Outcome and Quality Education
Learning Outcome helps us a lot in understanding the concept of quality education. There is a direct link between the two. “Learning Outcome at Elementary Level” is a detailed document prepared by N.C.E.R.T. It provides us a guideline pertaining to various competencies and skills a...
You are unique!
Somewhere in West Bengal, lived a little boy named Subho. A simple and jovial kid, he was always busy with his friends and family. Like all other children of his village, he too attended school and got the opportunity to participate in all ‘Ankan Pratiyogita’ (drawing competition),...
How I found my true calling...
Born and raised in the district of Mirzapur, it seemed I would lead a mediocre life. Or so I thought. After completing my primary education from the local school, my father enrolled me in a school quite far from home. To support my enthusiasm for studies, my father worked in the fields all day...
Why books are our best friends
The opening line of one of the poems of Safdar Hashmi is, ‘Books want to say something’, (kitabe kuchh kahna chahti hain). And he is right. Books do want to say something but only to those who strike a chord of friendship with them. As the popular saying goes, ‘books are the...
Those eight years
Of all the formal stages of school education, elementary stage –grades one to eight—is the most important stage. Therefore, central as well as state governments are making every effort to provide basic facilities pertaining to it. From establishing new schools, upgrading the older...
Teachers can make coming to school fun for children
Though I was interested in studies, as a child I never liked going to school. My parents wanted me to pursue education and supported it in every possible way, but somehow going to school every day was nothing more than a tedious ritual to me.
Now that I work in the education sector and...
Why do we need skill-based education?
In this era of Make in India, when Skill India campaign is being promoted vigorously and the government is trying to develop entrepreneurship skills among its youth, are our schools competent enough to lay the foundation of such abilities, skills and capacities among our kids, which will...
How I fought for my education
I was born in Swarghat, a small town near Solan, Himachal Pradesh. My parents loved me, I loved them too. I enjoyed going to the neighbourhood ‘school’ for my primary education and playing on its campus. The only thing that bothered me was the homework I used to get. I was...
Where kids learn with a billion-dollar smile
The lanes leading to this primary school in Charamah, a small village, some 15 kilometers away from Kanker, were narrow. It was my second day of field visit in Chhattisgarh, and I had already been to four schools, which, like most government schools in the state, had a dilapidated building...
A 'spark' in training
As I walked through the streets of village Dankaur, on the outskirts of Greater Noida town, to reach the District Institute of Education and Training (DIET), where I had to conduct two- day teachers’ training, I was thinking about the feedback I got from the teachers at my previous...
Giving wings to students' dreams
It was the summer of 1987, I was only 23 when I joined a primary school at Keskutul, Bhairamgarh, a severely Naxal-affected region of Madhya Pradesh, as a junior teacher. I was young and motivated, and I firmly believed that education could change the fate of this backward village by empowering...